Blackbird
by Rosie Avocado
Summary: Trance must say goodbye - S1 story.


Blackbird  
  
Author: Rosie  
Rating: PG  
Category: minor Trance/Harper, Trance POV  
Summary: Trance must say goodbye.   
Spoilers: for ADDB and DMZ  
Disclaimer: 'Gene Roddenbery's Andromeda' belongs to Tribune Entertainment, 'Blackbird' belongs to the Beatles.   
Authors Note: Semi song-fic, but holds its own with out the song. I just liked it. Feedback is appreciated!   
  
~~~  
  
I knew the day would come.   
  
I knew the day would come when I would have to leave the family I've found here aboard a 300 year old Commonwealth warship, under the command of a man with enviable hopes and dreams.   
  
I knew the day would come when I would have to go home.   
  
/Blackbird singing in the dead of night  
Take these broken wings and learn to fly  
All your life  
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive/  
  
I've been delaying it as long as is possible. Showing my people that I can take care of myself in the big bad world, and even make a difference, making choices to guide them in the right direction to do great things. They have the potential. Dylan is so full of idealism, but he knows the risks. Tyr may call it blind, but I don't. Dylan knows full well what could go wrong. He is no innocent.   
  
Neither am I.   
  
But even as I've been out here, alone, there has been people watching me. Watching my every move, ready to intervene at a moment's notice. When Gerentex shot me, they used our species phenomenal healing powers to bring me back.   
  
After all, I must be protected at all cost.   
  
/Blackbird singing in the dead of night  
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see  
All your life  
You were only waiting for this moment to be free/  
  
I was young when I left home. I craved freedom from my shackles as daughter of the king. I never wanted to be the one with the abilities our people have become renowned in legend for. How could I avoid it? The first-born female of the royal family always has the abilities – healing, telepathy, and precognition… it's just the way we've evolved.   
  
It's what keeps us alive.   
  
Freedom never came. Freedom never will come. Even now I am being watched, fiercely protected. When I don't need protecting.   
  
I can take care of myself. I kept Tyr from killing me. Clouded his mind and hated every moment of it, just to prove I could look out for myself. I don't need them. I don't need the bodyguards, the invisible, untraceable life forms that stalk me through the hallways. That watch me as I sleep.   
  
/Blackbird fly  
Blackbird fly  
Into the light of the dark black night…/  
  
How do I tell them? Dylan, Beka, Rev, Rommie… hell, even Tyr? How do I tell them that I'm being forced to leave them, forced to go back to my former prison like existence?   
  
Oh god, how do I tell Harper?   
  
Harper is my best friend. The one person in the world who got to know me as a person, not as a loopy purple enigma, not as a princess who needs constant supervision – as Trance Gemini, the girl beyond all that.   
  
There is a lot he doesn't know, and I know that it hurts him. I can see it in his eyes, every time I evade a question with a none-too-subtle change of topic or stammered enigmatic comment.   
  
But it was Rule #1, the moment I left – don't tell anyone about your past. Don't tell them who you are, where you're from, even your real name. You are to remain mysterious. An enigma. A puzzle, never quite solved.   
  
Never get too close.   
  
I broke that rule once, when I was younger. I fell for a man, with blond hair and blue eyes so much like Harper's, and I told him everything. About me, about my species and the Utopia they were convinced they'd created.   
  
And the spirits my father sent to protect me burnt him alive, from the inside out. Set him alight inside his stomach, and made me watch as he crumpled into a blackened corpse on the floor. I tried and I tried to save him, but it was too late.   
  
I will let that happen to Harper over my own blackened corpse; I care about him far too much for that.   
  
The spirits hate him. I know they mess with his health at any chance they have. When he got radiation poisoning, they tried to put med bay offline. I had to fight them off with my mind. It took nearly everything I had, and I spent a fortnight asleep in my quarters because of it.   
  
But it was worth it.   
  
/Blackbird singing in the dead of night  
Take these broken wings and learn to fly  
All your life  
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive/  
  
I can feel my father calling me in his mind. Telling me that I've had my fun, but it's time to go home. The place I was raised was never home, I've found home here but I can't stay. I can't run the risk of refusing because they might take it out on Rommie and her crew. I couldn't take it. I couldn't.   
  
My alternative? Locked up in solitude, married off to a man I don't know to be a wife and mother. Then being forced to watch my children suffer the same fate.   
  
How much I wish there was another way.   
  
How much more do I wish I could tell Harper the truth?   
  
But I love him too much.   
  
***  
  
The crew of the Andromeda stood at Command and watched as the familiar face spun out unfamiliar words on the holographic view screen. The lavender complexion was pale and streaked with tears, and the voice shook with every word.   
  
"Trance, where the hell are you?" Harper demanded, worry gnawing at his stomach. She'd taken off almost without a trace, and he'd been frantic when he realized she was gone.   
  
Now this transmission. This horrible, unthinkable transmission.   
  
"Can we get a clear sensor contact on Trance's ship, Rommie?" Dylan asked. Rommie closed her eyes briefly, then frowned.   
  
"I'm sorry, Dylan… I've never seen anything like this before, the cloaking technology is amazing," Rommie answered. "There's been some great developments since the Fall, I see."   
  
"No, it's just Trance's technology," Beka said ruefully, her eyes full of sorrow and disappointment as the message. "As mysterious as the purple one herself."   
  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was leaving earlier," Trance continued, obviously fighting for control. "But I… I have to go, and I can't tell you where, and… I'm not coming back." She blinked, and a few more tears flowed down her cheek. Harper wanted nothing more than to be able to hug her and wipe them away. "So this is goodbye."   
  
"Like hell this is goodbye!" he yelled. "You can't just leave, not just like that… you promised Dylan, you said so yourself."   
  
"I know," she replied sadly. Fixing her gaze upon the captain, Trance continued. "Dylan, I'm so sorry… but for what its worth, I have faith in you. You can do this. You can fix things. You just have to keep trying."   
  
"Trance, I…" Dylan trailed off, and Harper realized the captain was at loss for words. Finally, he continued. "Good luck."   
  
"That's it?" Harper exploded. "Good luck? Trance, get your butt back here aboard this ship where it belongs right now!"   
  
"I wish I could." She wouldn't meet his eyes.   
  
"Why can't you?"   
  
"I can't –"  
  
"Hell, I think I deserve an explanation!" he ranted. "An explanation as to why the one person I thought I could count on in the entire universe is abandoning me."   
  
Slowly, she met his angry stare. Eyes met, gazes softened and Harper felt the anger he had felt only seconds before dissolve into a sorrow so great he had to blink back tears.   
  
"If I could tell you, I would," Trance said in a defeated tone. "But then they'd kill you, and I couldn't handle that."   
  
Knowing not to ask who 'they' were, Harper sighed, and to those around him appeared younger and more vulnerable in Command Decks lights. Slowly, he walked closer to the screen.   
  
"Will I ever see you again?"   
  
She smiled sadly. "No, you won't." A tear rolled down her face, and she looked at him directly in the eye before continuing. "I love you, Harper."   
  
The transmission cut abruptly, and Harper barely noticed Andromeda's complaints about not being able to re-establish communication. He couldn't feel anything. He was completely numb. Nothing had sunk in, nothing made sense anymore – his universe had just been shattered.   
  
Trance… oh god, Trance…  
  
"I'm detecting a ship headed towards a sun just inside this region of space," Rommie said suddenly. "Same signature, however unusual, as Trance's message."   
  
"On screen," Dylan commanded.   
  
The screen showed up, just to see the small, battered looking ship fly straight into the sun. As it hit deep enough, the entire ship exploded into a million tiny pieces. Looking on with tears streaming down his face, Harper heard someone scream "No!" Dimly, he realized the sound came from his own mouth.   
  
As the debris filled the view screen, Harper ran out of Command Deck and as far away from it all as he could get.   
  
/ You were only waiting for this moment to arrive /  
  
/END/ 


End file.
